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Given the price of the ram, unless you can find a screaming deal on used PC133 sodimms, I'd be more inclined to back down to W2K. The cost of the ram relative to the value of the older laptop is the issue.

well i ran 2000 on it a couple of months ago and to be honest i found it slower!

see i posted this because on a desktop you see their is lots of HDD activity etc and you can tell a RAM upgrade is needed but on the laptop it seems ok, theirs alot of hdd activity when windows is loading the desktop, would extra ram help this? or would i be better with a 5400RPM 8MB cache samsung hard drive for it? as it currently has a 4200RPM IBM TravelStar

their is also the option of a CPU upgrade, it currently runs a PIII-M 800MHz / 256KB L2 / 100MHz bus and it can support up to a 1GHz PIII-M but only the ones with 100MHz bus as 256KB K2 cache would that be a better idea going the 200MHz extra, which when you think of it is an extra 25% CPU power

I don't think that you are going to get much bang for the buck (or pound, in your case!) from a RAM or a CPU upgrade.

I have myself thought about getting a new HDD with higher rpm's to improve things, but like DanceMan says, it is a question of cost-justification on an older laptop, and I have not been able to justify it to myself.

i know what you mean, i remember when i replaced my 5400RPM Seagate 40GB HDD in my desktop with the 60GB 7200RPM ExcelStor i was blown away with the performance gains so im thinking about going for the hard drive, also the power consumption of the Samsung 5400RPM is the same if not slightly better than my IBM drive.

it is an old laptop (about 3 years i think), but its still great, does anything i want it to do, is the lightest and thinest laptop ive ever used so i think spending a little more for some more performance is worth it.

Here in Vancouver, that Hitachi would be $249Cdn vs. $96 for the Samsung, which will be quieter, cooler and draw less current. The much lower cost of the Samsung makes the upgrade for an older laptop more viable.

I do think you'd notice a bit of an improvement after startup with 2K because of leaner ram usage. If you put a new drive into it, it might be worth giving it a try, though plowing through all the updates for 2K is a royal pain, and just ghosting your XP over would be far easier.